QUOTE(teopiltzin @ Nov 21 2010, 10:42 PM)
There are a few key components that make up what calendar shamanism really is. Constant contact and interaction with the sacred cycle of 260 days is the first prerequisite. The second, to actively use it in your daily life. That is, "living the days." Once you have established such a connection, generally achieved by simply memorizing the day names in their order and keeping the count involuntarily (that is keeping the count without the aid of a physical calendar or the internet. The day names then become like a tree on which we could hang the intuitions we receive about the calendar each day. I wonder then how it was possible for the first wise men of mesoamerica to look into the najt, or time-space, and retrieve all the knowledge about each particular day. It must've taken a lot of practice and scientific development to achieve. But first, they discovered the count. The task of the calendar shaman is to hang his insights on the leaves of this huge cosmic tree that is the calendar. Each passing day, our connection grows deeper with the count of the nawales and the insights gain depth as we move along the world of the tonal.
A new component that I think would complement this activity is the interpretation of dreams and visions through the eyes of the days. For information on maya dream interpretation using the calendar, read the thread The Art of Dreaming of the Highland Maya. As for visions, mostly the same laws or rules apply. But there is a special type of vision or source of visions that most calendar shamans dismiss. This is what is called the shamanic journey. Practiced for thousands of years by shamans, it has been neglected by calendar shamans because it is not common for the daykeepers of Guatemala to undertake that task. But my personal version of calendar shaman includes what Michael Harner calls the principles, methods, and cosmology of core shamanism. These instructions of Michael Harner form the basis of my practice and any good calendar shaman should have this knowledge in his magickal toolkit. Basically, this means that the calendar shaman of my tradition would have the skills of the conventional core shaman as well as access to the divine and scientific resevoir or inventory of the Ajq'ij or Maya spiritual guide, while carrying himself through life with the impeccability of the Toltec Nagual, or spiritual warrior much like what is described in the works of Carlos Castaneda.
One of the methods to come into closer contact with the cosmos, as well as to make changes in the material world through working with the spirit world, is the classical shamanic journey. Through journeying techniques we can be lead by our spirit helpers and guardian spirit into the unknown world of the nagual and back again to do healing work and for general self-mastery and self-discovery. To go into the spirit realm, one only needs to use ones intent to cross through the boundry between this world and the world of dreams, which is available to use while we are awake through the shamanic journeying technique. Journeys are waking lucid dreams. There are many ways to enter the world of spirit in this way. Some people use a hole in the ground, or use the roots of a great cosmic tree to access the lower-world or Mictlan the place of the dead and of the nine underworlds; one could also use an imagined or real tunnel into the ground. Others use this tree to climb up its trunk on to the leaves to visit the upper-world, or the place of the thirteen gods of the thirteen heavens.
In my proposed tradition of shamanism, one must travel up the thirteen heavens to do many useful things. If you are working on something important, you go up the levels or heavens until you come face to face with the supreme creator of the universe, Ometeotl. To him you could pray or cry for his aid or for him to bestow on you certain secret knowledge or wisdom, or even special powers that can be used to heal the sick and those with problems. As I have practiced it, the first time you make this journey up to the heavens, you travel up one level a day beginning with the first day of a trecena of the sacred calendar. Each day you go up to the next level. These thirteen days are great time to ask for spiritual protection and to ask to meet new spirit helpers whether they be in plant, animal, or human form. There you will meet many manifestations of the gods in many abstract or specific forms. Once you know the way, you might go up the levels very quickly or simply skip to where you need to go without going through the level linearly.
I don't quite understand why you're stating such a thing, but I'd like to say this is one perspective on a larger picture. I would refrain from saying journeys into the spirit realm is lucid dreaming, it's been my experience that it's actually refined OBE I believe this is the case largely because it would be difficult to write about such a finding from an anthropologist's perspective; something never seen or felt before and a native speaking about 'spiritual journeys' would most likely describe said events in a dream like manner simply as a metaphor in attempt to better illustrate the going-ons in said space.
To call the 'creator' one name or another is interesting but a waste of time, ultimately you can call the creator what you like and it will respond. I don't exactly think it's in the shaman's universal viewpoint to exactly try and pinpoint an entity responsible for creating the universe, a shamanic story will illustrate this (you can find it in Mircea Eliade's 'Shamanism Archaic Techniques of Esctasy') there were three great beings in the beginning: the creator, the destroyer and the shaman; in the beginning the destroyer envied the shaman's power and killed 'the great shaman' and to display mastery over the destroyer 'the great shaman' revived, the creator was angry at the shaman's power and decided to prove it's power over 'the great shaman' and inevitably failed because 'the great shaman' is the hero of the story. This all boils down to the three magicians Crowley was speaking of: white, yellow and black and to give a better understanding of these magicians or schools of thought in terms or religion: There are three types of turtles in a river, yellow turtles, white turtles and black turtles. The river is life, and the universe as we know it. The black turtles are swimming upstream to find the source of the river so they can destroy it and battling all those who try and get in their way, the white turtles are swimming downstream to keep the river going maintaining order throughout the river and ensuring the black turtles don't get their wish. The yellow turtles are swimming sideways trying to get out of the river.
This post has been edited by Dancing Coyote: Nov 28 2010, 11:25 PM
Calendar Shamanism
Nov 21 2010, 08:42 PM
